


domesticity, with a side of shakespeare

by VesperRegina



Category: Justice League & Justice League Unlimited (Cartoons)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Literary References & Allusions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 12:38:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19173442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VesperRegina/pseuds/VesperRegina
Summary: In which Vic gets annoyed and Helena is oblivious, but both not for long.





	domesticity, with a side of shakespeare

"No." 

She's talking aloud again, tap-tapping against paper with a pen. 

"No." 

This habit of hers is old enough to become trying.

"No."

"Helena," Vic warns as he clicks through to another page of the website he's found.

"Hmm," she answers.

"You're muttering." 

He hears the spring in his sofa creak, and although he doesn't turn around to look, he knows she's twisted around to look at his back.

"I am?"

"Yes."

The spring creaks again as she settles back around and her papers rustle.

"You do it, too."

"Do not," he answers without rancor, this an old discussion.

"If you say so."

He leans forward, trying to make out the blurry shape on the photograph. He hears more rustling of papers, a sigh. A few minutes of blessed silence.

And then, "Dear God, give me patience!"

He pushes his chair out from the desk, swivels around, and starts to say, "Helena..." but he stops when he sees what she's done. Helena has, since she came over, twisted her hair up into a sloppy knot, anchored by a slanted pen, a slim, black Papermate.

He stares at it, trying to figure out how it can possibly be holding that thick mass of hair up at all. He almost gets lost in following the strands, looping and coiling, in and out, around the pen.

He blinks, pulls his gaze away, focusing instead on the paper Helena holds in her hand. The two columns on it have been liberally marked with corrections.

He clears his throat, says, "Trouble?"

She puts down the paper on the coffee table and turns to face him, putting her feet down on the floor and sitting up straight.

She says, "Ask them to answer a simple question, matching, no less, and what do I get?" She raises her left arm up over her head, grabbing her wrist with her other hand and pulling, popping her shoulder. She answers her own question, "Chaos. It'd be amusing, if it wasn't so disappointing. If they had their way Hermia would be saying 'Over hill, over dale'!" She repeats her gesture, this time on her right arm, accidentally brushing against the pen. He watches as some strands fall loose.

He leaves his chair, walks over to the coffee table, pushes aside the correction-riddled test, and sits in its place.

Helena rolls her head from side to side; her neck crackles, more strands fall loose. He reaches for them, twisting one of the fallen locks of hair in his fingers, before letting it fall back into place. He says, "This is new."

She raises an eyebrow, her mouth quirking into a puzzled smile. "I always put up my hair when I'm grading. Helps me concentrate."

"I'm used to it loose."

"Oh." She reaches up to pull out the pen, but he stops her.

"Let me."

She smiles, eyes and mouth, mischievous. "Why... Q."

He answers before he realizes it wasn't a question. "I need to know how it works."

The mischievous light fades from her eyes, leaving something behind far more aware.

"I'll show you," she says.

Vic pulls the pen from her hair and hands it to her. She stares at him, her mouth slightly open, just for a second, before turning away.

He watches as she gathers her hair into a loose hold, doesn't miss the shiver that sweeps across her shoulders as she twists her hair up and into itself, pays close attention to the way she weaves the pen, in and out.

She turns back to him, says, "Ta-da."

He says, "I see," leans into her space. He slides his hand along the juncture of her shoulder and neck, up into the knot of hair.

Helena murmurs, "Oh, babydoll," right before he kisses her.

By the time they separate for air, the pen has fallen out of her hair and she's straddling him, arms wrapped around his neck.

He looks up into her face, says, with only a slight touch of dry amusement, "'O Helena, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine!'" He leans in and starts nuzzling the warmth behind her ear, continuing, "'To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne? Crystal is muddy.'"

She gasps and shifts closer, letting her head fall to the side. She says, "My eyes are brown, Vic."

"So I've noticed." He follows her jawline with his lips, quoting in the pauses, "'O, how ripe in show thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow.'"

Another long kiss, that she breaks off, saying, "I've never had them compared to cherries."

"Demetrius does become quite grandiloquent."

"Don't tell me you have the whole play memorized?"

"Not entirely."

He reaches up, taking her hand from its place at the nape of his neck, where she'd been idly combing through the hair there, saying, "'That pure congealed white, high Taurus snow, fann'd with the eastern wind, turns to a crow...'" 

"You're such a romantic."

He kisses her fingertips, pinky, ring finger... he hears her intake of breath, notices she holds it.

"Never been called that before."

Middle finger, index, thumb....

"First time for everything, Q."

He turns her hand over, finishes the quote, "'When thou hold'st up thy hand: O, let me kiss this princess of pure white, this seal of bliss!'" Places a kiss in the center of her palm.

He looks at her, seeing the anticipation clear on her face. Her hair is a mess, rumpled waves around her face, flush high on her cheeks, a quick rhythm to her breathing.

She's beautiful.

He says, "It's possible that the man known as William Shakespeare never even wrote those words."

"Oh? So who did?" A challenge.

"Christopher Marlowe, or--"

She cuts him off with a swift kiss, pulls back, puts a finger on his mouth and says, "Later, Vic, later."

Later it is, then. Not that he begrudges the delay.

**Author's Note:**

> I can't remember when I first wrote this... probably around the same time as "Gather Not My Soul," which would date it back to 2007, but here it is, many years late.


End file.
